Kontext

With the European Green Deal, the Farm-To-Fork (F2F) Strategy, and the Biodiversity Strategy in place, the EU has set targets of at least 25% of the EU’s agricultural land under organic farming by 2030, along with a significant increase in organic aquaculture. As of 2019, the share of organic farmland stood at 8.5% in the EU-27. This implies that to reach the 25% EU target for organic agricultural land the current organic area must triple within the span of 11 years. Organic aquaculture was 2% of total aquaculture production (based on tonnes live weight) in 2019. While there is no specific F2F target for organic aquaculture, achieving a similar threefold growth rate as for farmland to reach 5% share would require substantial efforts. The ambitious targets require an upscaling of both production and consumption and a radical transformation in farm structures and value chains, ambitious R&I for organics, strong advisory services, knowledge exchange and training opportunities for all organic operators and related professionals.

Objectives

The overall objective of the OrganicTargets4EU project is to support the F2F targets for organic farming and organic aquaculture by setting possible scenarios for change. Scenarios are built from the past and present key drivers for the development of the organic sector and are analysed from a Production and Market side (P&M strand) and from a Knowledge and Innovation (K&I strand) side. Results from P&M and K&I strands will feed a multi-actor policy dialogue assessing the feasibility of the organic F2F targets and propose policy opportunities for the CAP, the EU organic regulation, EU and national organic action plans, within existing policy frameworks (up to 2027), and for policy developments in the next policy reform from 2028 onwards.

Activities

OrganicTargets4EU has assessed the key drivers and lock-ins affecting the development of the organic sector and drafted 4 scenarios for the organic agriculture sector and 4 scenarios narratives for organic aquaculture. The socio-economic impacts of the developed scenarios from input supply to farm gate and from consumer demand to supply changes (P&M strand) are ongoing. Scenarios are also considered in the promotion of capacity building and increased R&I investments (K&I strand). 
Project activities and outcomes have an EU-level scale while deepening in 8 EU-countries, named focus countries. The eight focus countries are represented by project partners who have close connections with producers and value chain actors engaged throughout the project. 7 of the 8 focus countries (DE, HU, DK, IT, RO, AT, FR) cover organic agriculture while 2 of the 8 focus countries (GR, DE) cover organic aquaculture. 
Achievements:
Assessment of the key drivers and lock-ins for the organic sector including:
1. Inventory of enabling and constraining factors on the development of the organic agriculture and aquaculture sector
2. Assessment on the agricultural (and aquaculture) AKIS including food processing and retailing covering all focus countries 
3. Assessment of agricultural and aquaculture policy responses to the organic F2F targets
4. Influence of key drivers for change on organic sector development including time series analysis in the development of organic production and market at EU-level, of key events for the development of the organic sector in the focus countries 
5. Synthesis of key drivers and lock-ins for organic sector development

Development of scenarios for reaching the organic F2F targets including:
6. Analysis of Future Trends and Uncertainties and defining the driving forces
7. Developed 4 scenarios narratives for the organic agricultural sector and 4 scenarios narratives for organic aquaculture

Knowledge exchange and build capacity of organic advisory services: 
8. Initiated communities of Practice (CoP), in the 8 focus countries with groups of conventional producers willing to consider converting to organic. 
9. Developed business plan for the Organic Farm knowledge platform (organic-farmknowledge.org/)